CHAP. VIII.] MIGRATORY BIRDS. 73 
have no doubt that, instead of an eagle, as he supposed it to 
be, it was the great Strix bubo. The colour of its eyes, the 
situation the bird was in on the branch of a tall fir-tree, and its 
remaining quiet until the man approached so close to it, all con- 
vince me that it must have been the great owl, whose loud mid- 
night hootings disturb the solitude of the German forests, giving 
additional weight to the legends and superstitions of the peasants 
of that country, inclined as they are to belief in supernatural 
sounds and apparitions. 
The hoopoe has been killed in the east of Sutherlandshire, on 
the berit-hills near Dornock, and so also has the rose-coloured 
ousel. These birds must have been driven over by the east 
winds, as neither of them are inhabitants of Britain. Indeed, 
many a rare and foreign bird may visit the uninhabited and 
desert tracts of bent and sand along the east coast without being 
observed, excepting quite by chance; and the probability is, that 
nine persons out of ten who might see a strange bird would take 
no notice of it. 
Last winter I saw a great ash-coloured shrike or butcher-bird 
in my orchard. The gardener told me that he had seen it for 
some hours in pursuit of the small birds, and I found lying about 
the walls two or three chaffinches, which had been killed and 
partly eaten, in a style unlike the performance of any bird of 
prey that I am acquainted with; so much so, indeed, that before 
I saw the butcher-bird, my attention was called to their dead 
bodies by the curious manner in which they seemed to have been 
pulled to pieces. Having watched the bird for a short time as 
he sat perched on an apple-tree very near me, I went in for my 
gun, but did not see him again. The tawny bunting and the 
snow-bunting visit us in large flocks, especially the latter, which 
birds remain here during the whole winter, appearing in greater 
or lesser flocks according to the temperature. In severe weather 
the fields near the sea-shore, and the shore itself, are sometimes 
nearly covered by them. When the snow-buntings first arrive, 
in October and November, they are of a much darker colour 
than they are afterwards as the winter advances. If there is 
much snow, they put on a white plumage immediately. I do not 
know how this change of colour is effected, but it is very visible, 
and appears to depend entirely on the severity of the season. 
